TV Quote of the Day (‘The Simpsons,’ As the Family Goes to an Unusual Doctor)

[Homer Simpson says that he has made an appointment with Dr. Marvin Monroe for the family.]

Lisa Simpson [voice of Yeardley Smith]: “You're taking us to a doctor that advertises on pro wrestling?”

Homer Simpson [voice of Dan Castellaneta]: “Boxing, Lisa, boxing. There's a world of difference.”—The Simpsons, Season 1, Episode 4, “There's No Disgrace Like Home,” original air date Jan. 28, 1990, teleplay by Al Jean, Mike Reiss, and Jon Vitti, directed Kent Butterworth and Gregg Vanzo

This may be the only reference from this episode of 36 years ago that needs to be updated. These days, Dr. Monroe would not advertise on boxing or pro wrestling, but on UFC.

And, as part of their therapy, the family would watch that “sport” on the White House lawn.

TV Quote of the Day (‘Mad Men,’ on Inferior Ad Submissions)

[Two ad firm partners are discussing the portfolio of a spouse’s cousin.]

Don Draper [played by Jon Hamm]: “His book.” [Chuckles] “It was filled with old ads.”

Roger Sterling [played by John Slattery]: [Chuckles] “Plagiarism. That's resourceful.”

Don: “He had five originals. There were all the same thing.”

Roger: “I told him to be himself. That was pretty mean, I guess.”—Mad Men, Season 4, Episode 6, “Waldorf Stories,” original air date Aug 29, 2010, teleplay by Brett Johnson and Matthew Weiner, directed by Scott Hornbacher

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Hucksters,’ on Radio Advertising)

Victor Albee Norman [played by Clark Gable]: “Miss Hammer, take a memorandum. To Mr. Kimberly: Dear Kim, For four years I haven't been listening to the radio much. Paragraph. Kim, in that time, it's gotten worse, if possible. More irritating, more commercials per minute, more spelling out of words, as if no one in the audience had gotten past the first grade. Paragraph. I know how tough Evans is, and some of the other sponsors, but I think we make a great mistake in letting them have their own way. We're paid to advise them. Why can't we advise them that people are grateful for what free entertainment they get on the air, grateful enough to buy the product that provides good shows. But, they have some rights, Kim, it's their homes we go into, and they're not grateful to people who get one foot in the door by pretending to offer them music and drama, and then take too much time in corny sales talk. Paragraph. I want to go on record as saying that I think radio has to turn over a new leaf. We've pushed and badgered the listeners, we've sung to them and screamed at them, we've insulted them, cheated them and angered them, turned their homes into a combination grocery store, crap game and midway. Kim, someday, 50 million people are going to just reach out and turn off their radios [snaps fingers], snap, just like that—and that's the end of the gravy, for you, and me, and Evans. Sign it love and kisses, Vic.”—The Hucksters (1947), screenplay by Luther Davis, adaptation of Frederic Wakeman’s novel by Edward Chodorov and George Wells, directed by Jack Conway

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Bedazzled,’ With Satan Confessing to a Long Losing Streak)

George Spiggott [aka Satan] [played by Peter Cook]: “There was a time when I used to get lots of ideas... I thought up the Seven Deadly Sins in one afternoon. The only thing I've come up with recently is advertising.” —Bedazzled (1967), screenplay by Peter Cook, from a story by Dudley Moore, directed by Stanley Donen 

Quote of the Day (David Ogilvy, With a Wildly Incorrect Prediction About Political Campaigns)

“Candidates for political office will stop using dishonest advertising.”— Legendary advertising executive David Ogilvy (1911-1999), Ogilvy on Advertising, edited by Christopher Fagg (1983)

Quote of the Day (Edna St. Vincent Millay, Viewing Advertising a Century Ago)

“To the dealer in advertising, man does not live by reason. In a situation not covered by some catch phrase, he is helpless."—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), “Say Shibboleth,” Vanity Fair, April 1923

When Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote this in the Roaring Twenties, the advertising industry was evolving from simply announcing a new product to persuading consumers that it couldn’t possibly live without it.

But imagine how she would have reacted if she had managed to live two decades longer, into the “Mad Men” era!

(For a crisply written summary of advertising in the 1920s and how it compares to today, I urge you to read Maggie Terry’s blog post on the Website for the Alabama firm Auburn Advertising.)

TV Quote of the Day (‘Mad Men,’ on What a Top Client Can Expect for Christmas)

Roger Sterling [played by John Slattery]: “If Lee Garner Jr. wants three wise men flown in from Jerusalem, he gets it.”—Mad Men, Season 4, Episode 2, “Christmas Comes But Once a Year,” original air date Aug 1, 2010, teleplay by Tracy McMillan, Matthew Weiner, Brett Johnson, and Erin Levy, directed by Michael Uppendahl

TV Quote of the Day (‘Mad Men,’ With an Ad Man’s View of Love)

“What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.” —Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm, pictured) in Mad Men, Season 1, Episode 1, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” original air date July 19, 2007, teleplay by Matthew Weiner, directed by Alan Taylor

Fifteen years ago, Mad Men premiered on AMC, propelling the cable station away from vintage movies and more towards original programming.

More important, it solidified a trend that began nearly a decade before with The Sopranos: an anti-hero (in this case, a smoking, drinking, womanizing ad agency creative director) who kept viewers coming back week after week, despite (or maybe that’s because of) his continual falls from grace.

I know that I couldn’t bear to miss a single one of its 92 episodes in its seven seasons.

For a fine summary about why this quintessential period drama was “a show built to last,” read this blog post by Vulture’s Matt Zoller Seitz.

Quote of the Day (Stephen Leacock, on Advertising and Intelligence)

"Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it."—Canadian economist and humorist Stephen Leacock (1869-1944), The Garden of Folly (1924)

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on One Neglected by Pollsters)

“Day after day across this mighty land,

While thunderous presses roll,

Young men with hat and briefcases in hand

(Or so I understand)

Wander from poll to poll,

Asking odd men in some peculiar street

Which candidate is theirs, which breakfast food

They least dislike to eat,

Which heresy offends their current mood.

But, left or right though thick the issues fall,

Nobody asks me anything at all.”— American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “The Forgotten Woman,” in Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades With Seventy New Poems (1960)

Quote of the Day (Comic Myka Fox, on Encountering Maybelline)

“Maybelline stopped me on the street for a fashion shoot. They said, ‘Can you please get out of the way?’”—Comic Myka Fox, quoted in “Joke of the Week: Myka Fox,” Time Out New York, February 13-19, 2014

Movie Quote of the Day (Cary Grant, Summing Up His Importance)

"I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me."—Kidnapped ad executive Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant), in North by Northwest, screenplay by Ernest Lehman, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1959)

Quote of the Day (Radio’s Fred Allen, on a ‘Successful Man in His Field’)

“The head of our [advertising] agency was a very successful man in his field. He would enjoy being in any field. He suffered from claustrophobia. He had to stay out of Rhode Island. He always felt that the state was closing in on him.”— Radio comedian Fred Allen (1894-1956), Treadmill to Oblivion (1954)